Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment. Is the minister aware that the world's biggest carbon tax is costing Teys Australia $5 million a year in extra energy and emissions costs? And what is standing in the way of abolishing this tax immediately?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to take this question from the member for Forde—not just because he campaigned for lower electricity prices at the last election and not just because he and his wife, Judi, have been tremendously successful small business people but, in particular, because the member for Forde was the man who beat Peter Beattie! However, that is probably the reason we have him—the one sitting over there—as the Leader of the Opposition.

But the question asked was, who is standing in the way of removing the carbon tax and lowering electricity prices? And, lo and behold, it is the same Leader of the Opposition. Right at this moment his senators are on strike. They are doing what he knows best; he has called them out on strike. There is a picket of the Senate voting box. We are going through this agonising process of speech after speech, repetition after repetition, of senators from the ALP, under instructions from the Leader of the Opposition, not to allow the carbon tax to be repealed.

Ms King interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ballarat will desist.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will be keep going. Let me say this to the Leader of the Opposition: we will keep going, for as long as it takes this parliament, until the carbon tax is repealed. His senators are doing everything they can to avoid a vote, to avoid the decision, to avoid the pledge that, as the Treasurer says, was made exactly a year ago today. But in the meantime it is costing Australian businesses real money.

The case of Teys was raised by the member for Forde. Teys is one of Australia's most successful and largest meat processors. It has a carbon tax bill of approximately $5 million a year in direct costs, in electricity costs, in gas costs, in water costs and in refrigerant costs. That can all end today. It can end immediately. For it to end, however, the Leader of the Opposition has to call his senators back to work, allow them to vote and allow them to make the decision the Australian people expect—and allow them to make the decision they campaigned for at the last election.

We have done a little bit more research and, lo and behold, we found a fact sheet put out by the member for McMahon a year ago today. What does that fact sheet show? For a small business, it shows a $9,000 saving. If they use 500 megawatts of electricity each year, they could save $9,000 a year. For synthetic greenhouse gases and refrigerants, there would be a 75 per cent reduction in costs—real savings. The only people standing— (Time expired)